Reply To: Welcome SMC members
Big V, thanks for participating. I hope we can generate interest in this free forum and exchange ideas like you’re talking about. I think Simon’s moving a lot of the comment to TA. I’m not saying the information from Tim Price and Tim Staermose aren’t valuable, but I just don’t put it into effect. I subscribe to a crisis investing newsletter from Casey that is much easier to put into effect on a monthly basis.
As for the private investing things offered by Simon, this is not at all a criticism of them, but quite a few of them don’t allow direct investment, but instead Simon’s group sets up special purpose vehicles to then invest in the investments. I’m a bit of a control person, so already I’m taking a leap of faith if I’m going to invest in some company run by someone else in another country. Now I’m being asked to invest in a second layer of the unknown as well, and I just don’t care for that. Since I’ve not invested through either PVI, Tim Price or Tim Staermose, I’m not getting that much–except for the private meetups. And they’re great. THe speakers are pretty good, and the members are great. But it’s a shame we’re paying such a premium essentially to meet up with each other.
On the completely different topic of captive insurance, it’s like a lot of other things: if your company’s risks and numbers could justify it, and done with the right captive manager, it can be a very good and legitimate risk shifting mechanism that also carries with it tax benefits. Done with someone shady, it can be a red flag tax dodge.